RUCHHAUSEN, CASPAR, M. D., of Norwich, Chenango county, N. Y., was born August 25th, 1806, in the city
of Frankfort-on-the-Main, the former capital of the German Confederation, and, up to 1866, one of the four Free Cities, the native place of Gthe, and
the original residence of the Rothschilds.

His father was of pure German, his mother of French descent, her grandfather, Sellier by name, a
staunch Huguenot, having emigrated from Paris, when Louis XIV. revoked the tolerance Edict of Nantes -proclaimed by his ancestor, Henry IV.- and settled
in. Hanau, a manufacturing town, where many refugees found an asylum under the Landgrave of Hesse's protection.

Dr. Bruchhausen received a classical education, but without any special profession carried a scanty
livelihood as a literatus by writing, proof-reading, translating, and teaching.

In he spring of 1836, he came to America and found employment in Philadelphia with Mr. George Wesselhft,
who imported and dealt in books and homopathic medicines, and published a German weekly newspaper.

In this connection he made the acquaintance of Dr. C. Hering, Green, G. Humphreys, Matlack, and other
disciples of Hahnemann. Among them, Dr. Charles F. Hoffendahl, a graduate of the old school, of Berlin, Prussia, but converted to homopathy by
witnessing the cures of a hospital physician in Vienna, and who had been physician in ordinary to the Count of Schwerin, befriended Dr. Bruchhausen
particularly, and by his encouragement and under his auspices he commenced the study of medicine, 1839, went with the same to Albany, where he (Dr.
Hoffendahl) entered on a large and lucrative practice, counting among his patrons also the late Governor Seward. When Dr. Hoffendahl (1841) removed to
Boston, Dr. Bruchhausen went to Hudson, N. Y., and prosecuted his studies under Dr. George W. Cook, later of Brooklyn, now deceased.

Thence he betook himself to New York city with a view of attending lectures in one of the allopathic
institutions, and matriculated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons ; but a fit of sickness, and the slim prospect of one so heterodox
obtaining a diploma from the Regulars, prevented him from completing the course, to enjoy for a while a purer air in Providence, R. I., and the
advantage of preparing himself privately for practice with Dr. Parlin.

Conversant, besides Latin and Greek, with French, German and English, he improved also all
opportunities for familiarising himself with homopathic literature. He wrote a "Popular Essay on Homopathy and Allopathy," which was
published in

Hull's Homopathic Examiner, vol. ii. Nos. 5 and 6, and afterwards circulated as a pamphlet. In 1842, he engaged in the translation of "Hufeland's Enchiridion
Medicum," which he finished in August of that year. About that time learning that there was an opening for a homopathic physician in Chenango,
one of the then more secluded counties of the State (now traversed by two railroads), he repaired to Greene and embarked upon the hard life of a country
practitioner, which tries both body and mind. As a pioneer of the new doctrine he had in addition much prejudice and opposition to combat with, but
bravely fought his way, gradually winning for himself and the system the favor of the people. The following May, 1843, he located in the village of
Oxford, where he remained five years. In 1848, he moved to Norwich, the county seat, and resides there still, active within a more limited circle,
better appreciated and satisfied to have broken the road for a method of doctoring more beneficent in its effects to suffering humanity than any
hitherto known, leaving younger practitioners to reap the harvest of his early labors, which pecuniarily profited him comparatively little.

Literary in his tastes, Dr. Bruchhausen has acquired some reputation as a translator, and has himself
written several papers on medical subjects, and also miscellaneous articles of interest to the general public. In 1870, he published even a volume,
entitled, "Rhymes of the Times, and other Chimes," one of the few collections of verses written by one, whose vernacular is not the English,
and which has been favorably noticed.